As a minority group, LGBT as a label is quite different than
many other labels. There are some dynamics unique to this community that I
think warrant some inspection. Sometimes we want to talk about lgbt labels or
homophobia and I've been hearing some great perspectives, but other times I
hear some very misguided stuff. Let's just go through a list of few of the
dynamics of lgbt issues so we can better understand them.

LGBT is a group of
groups

Lgbt is a group of groups. Those groups have varying degrees
of privilege and varying degrees of acceptance within the straight
majority. Although other minorities
battle with this too, the degrees of privilege within the lgbt community vary
to a much greater degree. The experience of a 'straight acting' (it's a thing)
white male gay person and a very butch lesbian are too different to compare, yet both are gay. The
'straight acting' white male gay has been accepted as 'one of the good ones'. We
can see from financial demographics and mass media (as well as our own
understanding of patriarchy) how they have been assimilated to a much greater
degree than others. That is not to say that they have been accepted as 'straight'
in the same way that the Irish are now considered white. Just that the degree
of privilege is very different.

Other lgbt sub-cultures are mined for interesting entertainment
for straight people which others are not. Drag queens and transgender people are
crushed together in a meat grinder to produce RuPaul's drag race. Feminine,
stereotypical gay men are tasked with whipping straight women's boyfriends in
shape on Queer Eye and being the witty side kick on every design show ever. Pretty, feminine lesbians are
pretty much not good for anything except pornography for straight men, but they
are apparently great at that. You will
never see anyone like me on TV, although we are apparently so gay-positive as a
society. We often use these shows as examples of equality in programming and
say things like "Isn't it great that they are so okay with showing gay culture
on TV?" when these shows are nothing but minstrelsy and do nothing except further
the heteronormative status quo.

So now we have a situation where the lgbt people who have
been given enough by the straights to calm down (the 'straight acting' white
men and some of the richer pretty white women) are actively driving the
conversation for all of us. Straight people point to them as proof of the
progressiveness of todays society.

Yes, some of us are doing fine. Some of us have enough money
and no one ever utters a slur around us or even notices us and life is good.
Others are still in fear for their lives in North America in 2014, though. Let's
remember that. Homophobia is not over. Not even close.

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Citing your 'lgbt friends opinion' is even less helpful to a
discussion of minority issues than pointing to your 'black friend's opinion'.
Not only do we all have different opinions by virtue of being people, but our
personal experiences are sometimes so different that they cannot be compared
easily.

This brings up questions, though. Does this mean we have to
talk about each specific group separately? What does that mean for
interesctionality? Well, no we can go on as usual, that's why the lgbt umbrella
term exists, but it's important to realize and understand that there are vast
degrees of oppression experience in this community when we talk about it.

Aren't there like, infinite possible groups to be aware of,
though? What about the gay spectrum and where do people fit on it? Where is the
line where a person is queer or gay?

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Being Gay, Lesbian or
Bisexual Is About Who You Love, Not
Who You Fuck

Listen, I'm gonna level with you, I've heard some messed up
stuff recently about this. It seems you can't talk about being oppressed as a
gay person anymore because inevitably some straight person will chime in
talking about how sexuality is a spectrum and how they like kissing girls
sometimes and so they might actually be queer and therefore your experience or
thoughts or whatever about your own oppression mean nothing because they personally haven't experienced them
and they are queer by the very loose definition of the term that they have
decided to use.

Here's the thing though. Being gay is about who you fall in
love with and who you see yourself beside when you think about your wedding day
(if you do). It is not about who you
would feel comfortable having sex with.

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Straight people who would have sex with partners of the same
sex are straight people who are truly not homophobic. That is all. The only
thing, for instance, that separates a blow-job given by a woman from a blow-job
given by a man is the idea that one makes you think you're gay and the other
doesn't. Remove that homophobia and concern and you are left with a simple
blow-job. That isn't what gay means. It isn't even what queer means.

Equating sex with sexuality causes all manner of problems
from the over-sexualisation of gay media representation to the sexual deviancy
argument to sexual tourism and an increase in straight people coopting queer
and gay labels for themselves. So many problems, you guys!

Being gay means having to tell your family. It means knowing
you will probably never get to hold your partners hand innocently on the bus. It
means feeling like a partner of the same sex is natural and normal for you in a
world that is constant and consistent in reminding you that it is not natural or normal. I could never
imagine myself with a man for instance, although I have had sex with several of
them, love them as friends and have a child. That is what makes me a gay woman. It has nothing to do with who I
sleep with.

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Being gay is not something you can choose to do sometimes
and not others.

Being Gay Is Seen As a
Lifestyle Choice

Lgbtpeople have
this lovely added problem of being accused of 'choosing' our lives. It is exacerbated
by this misguided idea that who you have sex with is the factor which
determines your sexuality that I discussed above. I think it's pretty
self-explanatory but since gay people are not a race born to each other, being
gay seems random, to some it seems like something we can 'choose' not to be.
Religious people condescendingly 'love us' while they try to have our civil
rights legally removed at the same time. Others (sometimes the same people) instead
revile us and seek to eradicate us through ex-gay camps at best and violence at
worst.

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This makes our struggle very difficult. How do you convince
someone you deserve civil rights when they believe you chose to give them up?
How can you argue with a person's religion?

Hopefully I have explained a few things that make some sense
here. I hope it comes in handy the next times you are discussing lgbt issues or
the next time an lgbt person gets angry on an online forum and you don't
understand why.

Edit: To clear up any confusion, I am not saying that people who are heterosexual or do not choose to have same sex sexual partners are homophobic. I can understand how it sounds like I might be implying that, but I am not.

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I also would like to call attention to the first section of this post where I mention how little one single lgbt person's opinion matters overall. These are topics and personal politics which have many valid schools of thought associated with them, some contradictory, and mine is but one of many. Well, mine is a mix and match of many, more accurately.